"I am a 48 year old who has recently left a job as a calibration laboratory manager, where I worked for 24 years. Before that I trained and worked as a Registered General Nurse. Neither had anything to do with painting, but I have always ‘carried a torch for it’. Since I was young I have always enjoyed painting, and now my two children are grown, I have the opportunity to explore that inner world that exists in me and get some of those feelings down on canvas.
"I am particularly interested in flowers, probably because my Father (who is now dead) cultivated a most glorious garden with a little summerhouse at the bottom where I spent my teenage years painting well into the evening.
"I also enjoy painting local landscapes and some abstracts. There is a real joy to be had in sometimes just letting the paint almost find its own way onto the canvas and see where it takes you.
Thoughts and Feelings
The other day I was pegging the washing out in glorious sunshine, and spotted the shadows being cast onto the grass by the washing. I was transfixed, happy to just stare at them, watch how they moved and how the blades of grass pierced into them. Isn’t that what an artist's mind is about? Seeing the world in another perspective? Most of the time these thoughts are just logged unnoticed, but lately since I have been painting more frequently, they have come to the fore. Its almost as if I am discovering a new affinity for the world around me.
I have always been poor at painting figures, but of late, and I don’t know why, I have this feeling I want to tackle them. Certain images, like one I spotted in a magazine of two ballet dancers in an intimate dance sequence, I just know I have to attempt to get down on canvas. It’s the feelings between them I need to try and capture. Even if the painting is not successful when completed, I will have touched that inner self while attempting it, and what a glorious stress-free place that is.
